Data files and ports

Jesse Smith jessefrgsmith at yahoo.ca
Fri Jun 11 13:59:52 UTC 2010


I'm trying to teach myself how to build a FreeBSD port and, with a lot
of help from the manual, it's going well. I have a question though
concerning policy/style.

I'm trying to port a program which is distributed in two separate
packages from the upstream project. One package contains the executable
program and the other contains data files. The Data package rarely
changes. The idea being packaging them together would use up a lot of
extra bandwidth.

Which brings me to the question: Since the executable relies on the data
files being in place before it's run, how should I handle that in the
port? Should I just get the executable to install and let the user
manually get the data files? Should I create a second port for the data
package? Or should I find some way of making the executable's makefile
download and unpack the data package?

My instinct is to create a separate port for the Data package and list
it as a dependency for the Executable port. I'd appreciate some
guidance.

Thanks.





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